Blind people out of luck navigating the web
For most of us the web is a massive color newspaper that contains virtually anything you would ever want. For those that are blind navigating the web can be almost impossible. With web 2.0 applications, mouse clicks give you more control over your page and media. But for page reading software figuring out where the next block of text or submit button location can be impossible. Each rendition of HTML, the tags used to create web pages is becoming more and more complicated. These tags control where the next text location should go, which may not be the next sequential location on the page. Applications like Google’s word processor and spreadsheet use a programming language called Javascript to dynamically control the display. This makes the user experience much closer to a native program like Microsoft Word, but can be impossible to navigate for the blind. Most programs that read web pages have a very difficult time dealing with dynamic web pages. Since there is no standard way of interfacing to Javascript programs, audio programs just stop operating or start reading from places somewhere else on the page.
Navigating in the operating system has also become more complicated. From Windows 3.1, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to make all commands available from the keyboard. By Windows XP time frame, most applications worked well with text readers and virtually all commands were available directly from the keyboard. However, with the release of Vista, many commands were no longer available from the keyboard and applications don’t have a centralized way of dealing with the keyboard. A ray of light is the search function build into Vista which allows applications to be run without having to know their location. The search function also allows the user to find a document and run the application tied to it. However, many menus have have changed and several functions are mouse only. Trying to find a particular function with voice software can be maddening when you know it is there, but cannot navigate to it. The upgrade to Vista appears to be more of a problem then a solution. Sighted users have a long list of complaints against Vista and many have switched back to XP. Blind users are finding out that using programs in Vista means that functions don’t exist or have moved to strange new locations in the menu system.
While Web 2.0 is causing grief to the blind community, website protection schemes called CAPTCHA is making websites inaccessible. CAPTCHA is a scheme to keep programmatic spamming software from gaining access to websites. Google and Yahoo use this scheme to verify a user is human before they are allowed to create a mail account. To utilize this technology, a jumbled set of text in a fuzzy background is send to the user. Thee user must then type in the characters they see to gain access to the site. Here is where the rub begins, how does a blind person read something that by design is jumbled and blurred. One CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA has the capability of reading the text to be typed in, but that assumes the web reading software can decipher the code surrounding the reCAPTCHA so the user knows where to click. Spammers and hackers are forcing virtually all sites to employ some kind of verification before allowing users access. This is going to make it ever more difficult for the blind to access websites, blogs, and online applications.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Loading ...
User Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.